WhackyNation

I get sent a lot of YouTube videos. Most I just delete or refuse to pass along thus contributing to the spamfest. But this one (it’s not actually a YouTube video), sent to me by a friend, is worth watching. He is British. He is not concerned with being “PC”. And he is dead on the money!

Calling it like it is…..

It’s about time!  The owners of National Football League teams will meet later this week to consider — at last! — a rule requiring that players have their hair cut so that it will no longer flow out the back of their helmets covering up their names and the numbers on their jerseys. 

Unfortunately, they will not consider a stronger rule that would make it mandatory for players with the long, flowing locks to get haircuts.  The proposal they will consider would permit the hirsute players to “tuck their locks under their helmets.”  Well, at least that’s a good beginning.

Now I wish the other pro-sports leagues would consider a similar rule, or an even stronger one.  There is little that is more revolting than to see a football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, or other pro athlete cavorting on the field or on the floor while his flowing locks dance around his face and neck. 

At the moment, the team owners in the other leagues have shown no interest in endorsing rules that require their players to get haircuts.  Why not?  As a lifelong sports fan, I abhor sloppiness in any athlete, and I consider uncontrolled hair in a male to be a disturbing form of sloppiness.

I will never forget an N.F.L. game that was televised just couple years ago in which a running back was running down the field heading for what appeared to be a sure touchdown.  His locks were flowing behind them, and a defensive back who could not catch up with him managed somehow to grab his hair and bring him down at the last minute about ten yards short of a touchdown.

All  the pro leagues should crack down on their players, insisting upon neatness in appearance on the field or floor.  That neatness formula should include getting their hair cut, as well as maintaining cleanliness and neatness in their uniforms and in their habits while performing.

The leagues and the athletes should remember that the players, whether they like it or not, are models for youngsters across the country.  If the military services can rely on enforcing neatness rules in service men and women, the pro-sports leagues, which also require discipline in their players, certainly can do the same.

Is this asking for too much?  I hardly think so.  Professional athletes receive enormous salaries — probably much more than they should be getting — and they have a responsibility to clean up their acts and their hair styles.  It certainly isn’t too much to ask of these modern-day millionaires.

So, in the final analysis, what should the team owners in all the pro leagues resolve to do immediately to enforce needed rules on hair styles?  I think every team in every league should hire an additional member of the staff to accompany the players on all trips and at all times.

That additional member should be a certified barber!  Of course, in the women’s leagues that additional member probably should be a hair stylist.  The ladies need not get a haircut, but those pony tails should be harnessed with a ribbon.  After all, we don’t want them to start looking like males!

It’s no surprise that the Liberal, pro-Democratic members of the news media have quickly gone to the defense of Demo Congressman Jim McDermott for yet another of his shady experiences — experiences that should have resulted in a call from Congress that he resign his position as a lawmaker.

Now we’re told by these Leftist news sources that, oh, no, McDermott didn’t know or even suspect that his 2002 trip to Iraq was generated and paid for by sources related to the regime of the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. How naïve do these newsmen believe their readers are?

What is most surprising to me is that voters in McDermott’s home district have not voted against him for his series of misdeeds, even though I realize the district has gone Democratic for so many years. In fact, he should have been thrown out of office for committing a federal crime more than a decade ago when he leaked a private phone conversation that had been taped to the news media.

How many serious misdeeds does it take to kick an errant congressman out of office? His acceptance of Saddam-tainted funds for the 2002 trip should have been enough for that expulsion. On top of that, he committed a huge political gaffe while he was on that trip by making statements injurious to America’s cause in the Middle East.

McDermott has made so many trips abroad that were paid for by agencies with political interests that he could have served as a travel editor for a newspaper. I was surprised by an editorial statement in one pro-McDermott paper that it was a good thing for lawmakers to make trips to other nations so they could better understand what their positions should be on foreign affairs.

Holy Toledo, Batman! It’s the reporters and editors who are naïve, not the public, in this instance. For years, congressmen, as well as many state legislators, have managed to finagle funds for their “free vacations” to foreign lands from organizations that had a vested and political interest in the trips.

I still believe neither the President nor any member of Congress or a state legislature should accept funding from any source for a trip abroad. If they must go abroad, they can damn well pay for all the expenses out of their pockets. Lord knows they are overpaid and have plenty of cash in the bank to pay for those vacations.

I think that if Congress and the 50 state legislatures don’t have the courage to ban all such freebies for the President and all lawmakers, the public should take the initiative and demand an amendment to the U.S. and all state constitutions outlawing any travels not paid for out of the travelers’ pockets.

Furthermore, I have another important point to make: Neither the President nor any lawmaker needs to travel overseas “to understand” the nature of a foreign issue. For such information, we already have thousands of American agents of various kinds who serve abroad for the specific purpose of providing information about other nations.

A final word concerning McDermott: It’s been more than ten years since he broke the law by leaking a private telephone conversation to the press. Why isn’t he in jail, where he belongs?

… about State Representative Shirley Hankins, as did some in the Tri-Cities media.  Mea Culpa!

Hankins kept mum on why she invited Democrat Speaker Frank Chopp and not local Republicans to a dinner event and that fueled speculation that she was switching parties.  I fell for the speculation, too, only to learn that Hankins craftedly used the rumor mill to generate publicity about her announcement.  She’s fronting for an educational foundation purportedly to help kids with a 3.0 gpa to college.

So, I’m delighted that Hankins is staying with the Republican caucus.

But what about my criticism about House Minority Leader Richard DeBoldt and HROC?  I stand by most of it, except I need to soften my assertion that DeBoldt intimindated State representatives Fred Jarrett and Rodney Thom to switch parties.  Jarrett emailed me to say that was not the reason he switched parties.

I still say the box scores of recent elections as well as PDC reports showing campaign resources going to long-shot candidates and not incuments proves HROC — and its leadership — as ineffective.  I also stand by my assertion that both the House and Senate caucuses do not have a savvy about the politics of the surburban crescent because the caucus members are too focussed on rural Washington.  I’d like to believe that DeBoldt has truly learned from these mistakes, but I am unconvinced.  I’d be the first to help him if he convinced me.

As for the Hankin’s story, well, I guess, it impacts what I eat for dinner tonight.  Here’s the recipe:

Please pardon me if I brag a little, but I am overjoyed by the news that King Abdullah, not always a friend of the United States, has agreed to a plan that could lead, at last, to what I have been proposing for at least 30 years and continue to stand by today — a World Council of Religions!

The Associated Press has reported that Abdullah told a seminar titled “Culture and Respect of Religions” that it’s time for a dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It’s extremely important that Abdullah, a leader in the Muslim world, made his pronouncement after meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican last year.

Pope Benedict has been calling for such a meeting of religions for at least a year, and his efforts have been gaining ground ever since. Already agreeing with him is the leader of the Evangelical Church in England. Since Abdullah’s influence in the Islamic world is so great, it is important to repeat a quote reported by the A.P.:

“The idea,” said Abdullah, “is to ask representatives of all monotheistic religions to sit together in faith and sincerity to all religions, as we all believe in the same God. I have noticed that the family system has weakened and that atheism has increased. That is an unacceptable behavior in all religions, to the Quran, the Torah, and the Bible.

“We ask God to save humanity. There is a lack of ethics, loyalty and sincerity for our religions and humanity.”

As the A.P. pointed out, the King’s call is significant, since he is the custodian in Saudi Arabia of Islam’s two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina. It is of utmost importance, too, that the A.P. also reported that Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Yona Metzger, welcomed Abdullah’s proclamation, saying:

“Our hand is outstretched to any peace initiative and any dialogue that is aimed at bringing an end to terror and violence.”

I have long maintained that real world peace must begin with elimination of the centuries-old clash between Islamic nations in the Middle East and the new state of Israel. Bring those two factions together, I insist, and the road to peace would be assured in time.

Now it is time for President Bush to join with the Pope, Abdullah, Metzger, and the Anglican Church in creating the World Council of Religions I have been writing and talking about for so long. In such a Council, the religious leaders could target terrorists like Osama bin Laden to lay down their arms and join the crusade for a permanent peace in the world.

At the same time, I would hope that all religious leaders in the U.S. meet to urge President Bush to seize the initiative and appeal to the Pope, Abdullah, Metzger, and Britain’s church officials to come to the U.S. soon for the formation of a World Council of Religions. By the way, such an invitation should also go to the scores of other religions residing principally in China, India, and other nations of the Far East, South America, and Africa.

Here is an old political science question for you. If an innocent man is accused of a crime, should he seek a 12 or 15 person jury? The answer, according to Marquis de Condorcet, is a 15 person jury. Famous for what became known as “jury theorems,” Condorcet argued that, given good information, the relative probability of a group of individuals arriving at a correct decision increases as the size of the group gets larger. If that doesn’t make sense, just think of the “Ask the audience” lifeline in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game show. The audience almost never gets it wrong because the collective knowledge of the audience is so much greater than any one individual.

Jury theorems are important in political science because they provide an empirical rather than a normative defense of democracy. Condorcet’s theorem suggests democratic forms of government are pretty good at “getting it right” because they involve such large a number of decision makers.

A few years ago, a colleague of mine at the University of Oregon hypothesized the existence of a “reverse jury theorem.” He asked, what if people are given bad information? Does Condorcet’s jury theorem conclude that the populace is guaranteed to make the wrong decision?

We never answered that question, but the recent votes in Ohio and Texas provide some evidence that he hypothesized correctly. According to exit polls of Democratic primary voters, 80% Ohioans and 59% of Texans blamed NAFTA for job loses in their manufacturing sector. This means that 80% of Ohio Democrats are simply wrong. Since the passage of NAFTA Ohio has gained 900,000 new jobs and the losses in manufacturing have nothing to do with trade agreements.

The reason Ohio, and everyone else in the world, is losing manufacturing jobs is because productivity is up. Way up. Since 1994, US manufacturing production is up 66%. This means we can make more stuff with less people. Manufacturing jobs are not going to China, they are going away. China has lost more manufacturing jobs than any other nation in the world. Between 1995 and 2002 the US lost 2 million manufacturing jobs. China lost 15 million. I wonder if Chinese workers are blaming NAFTA?

Nothing new is happening here. Two centuries ago 98% of all Americans worked in agriculture. Today it is 2%. We didn’t lose 96% of our farm jobs. With increases in productivity 2% of our people can now do what it used to take 98% of our people. This is a good thing. It frees up labor to do something else: build houses, make clothes, write poetry, make music.

So the question remains. How did Condorcet get it so wrong? With millions of Ohio voters, his theory suggests they would have to get it right, but they got it completely wrong. What happened?

There are three culprits in this tale. Politicians, the media, and me.

Take Senator Obama who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He tried to get votes by telling Ohio voters that NAFTA took their jobs, but at the same time he was telling Canadian officials he didn’t really believe that. Of course he didn’t. He is a Harvard graduate who knows trade doesn’t kill jobs. But he lied to people to get votes. Shame on Obama, Clinton, and any other politician who lies about trade to win elections.

But, why did the lie work? Unfortunately, it worked because our citizens are not educated enough about trade and trade policy to call the politicians on their lies. An economically educated public would have been able to expose their demagoguery. The mainstream media, having already drunk the Obama cool-aide, didn’t challenge any of his unsubstantiated assertions. Where was the full court press on our half term senator?

The fact that so many Ohioans got it wrong also means that people like me are complicit in this failure. Unless high school economic teachers, college economics professors, and those who teach political economy do a better job educating our students, they will continue to be victimized by manipulative presidential candidates. It also means that economics, like English and mathematics, should be required courses at all our public universities.

Shame on all the anti-war protesters and especially most of the American print and broadcast news media for all their moaning and groaning over the news that the war in Iraq has cost the lives of 4,000 men and women. Their attitude is that all those deaths have been in vain and for an unjust cause.

I say shame on all of them for overlooking the most important fact that the 4,000 men and women, as well as the several thousand wounded military personnel, have given or risked their lives in a most worthy cause — the gift of democracy, freedom, and relief from a cruel dictator.

In addition, the dead and wounded, heroes all, risked their lives for an even more important reason — to make sure the terrorists they have fought cannot regain control in Iraq and will not be encouraged to bring their acts of terrorism to the American mainland and to other free nations.

Without question, the valiant efforts of our military men and women have given their all for our security at home for the present generations and for all those to come. For all these reasons, we should be praising our military heroes, not lambasting them and all other fighting forces for putting their lives on the line for all of us in a war the protesters say we should never have started in the first place.

I have to repeat what I have said so often since we invaded Iraq to free that nation from the deadly clutches of the tyrant, Saddam Hussein: Our military heroes have made it possible for America to give Iraq and Aghanistan the greatest gift one nation can give to enslaved nations — the gift of freedom and the right to choose their own government.

The anti-war protesters, the Bush haters, and the Liberal news media seem to have forgotten the fact that we have been involved in an international war on terrorism for three decades, culminating in the attacks by Muslim extremists on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The protesters have conveniently forgotten that the Muslim extremists stormed the U.S. embassy in Iran in 1979 and took many Americans hostage. Then, in 1982, the extremists bombed our embassy in Beirut, killing many. A year later, the Muslim radicals blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, again killing many Marines.

In 1985, the extremists seized the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, killing a 69-year-old American in a wheelchair and tossing his body overboard. A year later, Muslim radicals bombed a discotheque frequented by Americans, killing one and wounding others. Then, in 1988, the extremists bombed a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing scores of Americans.

In 1993, Muslim radicals bombed New York’s Trade Center, killing five persons and injuring hundreds. There were many other scattered attacks by the extremists in other parts of the world. Finally, the deaths of more than 3,000 in the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks persuaded President Bush to act on the premise that America had had enough of all the killings.

These are the attacks our courageous military men and women have devoted their lives to stopping. That’s why the 4,000 dead in Iraq and all the wounded deserve our praise and our devotion as legitimate war heroes — not Americans who gave their all for an unworthy purpose, as the protesters and Leftists in the news media have been saying.

The recent tragedies involving the deaths of students at schools in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, and other states have touched off another national dispute concerning the safety of students everywhere and, particularly, the fact that the killings were done by youngsters brandishing pistols they should not have been permitted to wield.

Many schools are conducting safety drills for all students and developing elaborate plans to protect youngsters while they are at school. Others are appealing to local and federal police agencies to lend a hand and help create security systems that will make such tragic shootings impossible.

Yet, in all I have heard and read on the subject in recent times, no one seems able or willing to direct attention to the real culprits in the shooting deaths at schools. The real culprits, I insist, are the persons closest to the berserk young people who decide to shoot up the premises at schools — the parents or other relatives who leave pistols and other weapons unlocked and easily available to the troubled young killers.

In virtually all cases, the youngsters bent on killing children at school obtained a weapon belonging to parents who failed to make sure the weapon was not only concealed but locked with a key that was not easily available to the youngster.

In effect, then, it isn’t the young upstart alone who should be charged with the crime; it should be the owner of the weapon, who did not bother to keep it out of the youngster’s hand. He or she should be hauled into court and charged as an accomplice in the crime.

So much for the parents in the continuing tragedy. I want to point another accusing finger at the other culprits in the mounting number of “accidents” resulting from the misuse of weapons or, more specifically, the placement of dangerous arms in the hands of thieves or the mentally impaired.

The target should be the gun dealers who are more interested in a buck than in refusing to place a weapon in the hands of a person with a criminal record or one who is a mental patient and should never be permitted to own or borrow a lethal weapon. Laws in all the states should demand that dealers make a thorough investigation of a customer before they hand over a weapon.

Gun dealers would probably argue that such an investigation should be the province of the police in every community, not the owner of a gun shop. Maybe it should, but maybe new laws on gun sales should insist that gun dealers summon the police whenever a sale is made.

Some may argue that requiring such a system would entail a lot of extra paper work and surveillance by already overworked police departments. But I say the system would be a blessing in disguise and certainly worth the extra effort. What’s a little paper work when lives are at stake?

Talk about a safe district.  Baghdad Jim McDermott should not worry about his seat in the House of Representatives just because today it was revealed that a trip he took to Baghdad in 1992 was paid for Saddam Hussein’s regime.

An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.

No, McDermott had “no idea” the trip was dirty.  And 80 percent of the voters in Seattle won’t care if it was dirty anyway.  As long as McDermott represents anti-authority he’ll get the Seattle vote.  It really speaks poorly of Seattle to the nation and for this I am embarassed.

As a strategy I have to applaud the Obama campaign for sending their candidate on vacation to the Caribbean.

It’s a masterful move.

Normally you want your candidate to grab as much free media as possible.  Not this week for Obama.

He’s in hiding … sort of … except for that one telephoto shot of him lying on a beach lounger talking on his cell phone looking sorta sexy in his bathing suit.  Snap!  Photo Op!  Yes, Obama is sexy in his bathing suit!

No soundbites, no interviews after the fallout of the Reverand Jeremiah Wright and his hate-America rhetoric.

Yes, remove Obama from the reach of journalists who might now finally be tempted to ask tough questions like, “You sat there for 20 years in the pew listening to that crap and you just accepted it?” 

No, remove the candidate long enough from the news cycles and those questions will disappear as another headline-du-jour captures the media’s interest.

Brilliant campaign strategy.  It really is.

As the former Chairman and current board member of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington, I find it very disturbing indeed that another longtime moderate Republican stalwart is rumored to be defecting to the Democrats.

Speculation is abounding in the Tri-Cities tonight that Representaive Shirley Hankins will announce Friday that she is flipping to the “D” side.  Chris Mulick got the scoop, which, so far, hasn’t been picked up by the Puget Sound Press blogosphere yet.

If so, Shirley would be the third Mainstream Republican to defect in two years following Fred Jarrett and Rodney Thom, both suburban crescent legislators and former Mainstream board members as is Shirley.

I’ve know Shirley since 1993.  She’s always been independent and feisty … and, too often, in my opinion, voting with the D’s on the budget.  But, nevertheless, she’s always stood her ground with more conservative members of the caucus especially during the crazy Christian-Right days of the 1990’s.

What’s going on here?  I can tell you in one simple answer: Richard DeBoldt. He as Republican Minority Leader has singlehanded run out of his caucus these three Mainstreamers and in the 2006 election caused the defeat of another half dozen by not funding their re-election campaigns.  Rather than building a majority for his caucus, DeBoldt is bull headed in cutting his party’s influence by insisting on conservative purity and absolute loyalty to him.

The problem with both the House and Senate Republican Caucuses, their leadership and support staff is that they are so reduced to representing rural Washington that they are out of touch with both the urban and suburban pulses.  Many in the caucuses are very fine and sincere public servants, but they lack a savvy to secure a majority for the Republican Party.

Is there any doubt why in recent years the business community and their election dollars have defected to Frank Chopp and his caucus?

The Republicans need new leadership in the Capitol caucuses.  Luke Esser at the State Party has done a remarkable job at bringing conservatives and moderates together in that sphere, but the caucus leadership in Olympia, especially in the House, is splintering the coalition.

This was evident to me last month when a group of us Mainstream leaders met with both the House and Senate Republican Leadership.  In the Senate, I felt there was a chance of electoral success, but not in the House.  The difference?  Senate Leadership gave us Mainstreamers nearly three or four times as much time to meet them AND they asked us for our input AND they listened.  That was not the case with Richard DeBoldt who was rushed out of our meeting and never asked for our input or suggestions.  He’s a top-down guy.  The problem is he’s not very “top” to begin with.

DeBoldt is a master at using fear among his caucus members to support him as leader.  He uses his appointment power to house committees as a bribery tool to win votes as Minority Leader.  Anyone who stands up to him is smacked down.  Nearly all of the Mainstream Republican Legislators have lost office or defected to the Democrats.  Only a few are left like Gary Alexander and Skip Priest.  During the 1990’s, most legislation that past the legislatue had the fingerprints of Mainstream Republican legislators who could effectively work across the aisle.  Now these legislators have been purged, and the Republicans can’t get much legislation passed.

It’s a sad day in Washington State.  Sad because due to the ineptness of Republican Caucus leadership, the Democrats have increased spending by over a third in three short years because the Republicans don’t have the votes to stop the fiscal irrepsonsibility.  Republicans don’t have the votes because of the ineptness of one Richard DeBoldt and the smarts of one Frank Chopp.

Even you Obamamaniacs will really enjoy this piece.  Her list is long, long, long.

In the 20 years I served as a critic-at-large for The Seattle Times, I was specially fond of making the rounds of the area’s many art galleries and museums, mainly because the Pacific Northwest has long been one of the most productive and imaginative art centers in the United States. It was educational, as well as culturally fulfilling, and I was enriched by my associations with many of the region’s great artists — among them Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, Paul Horiuchi, and others, as well as a surprisingly large and extremely active coterie of fine women artists and sculptors.

As an admirer of all the arts from the time I was a youngster, I came to know not only the names and styles of many artists but also much of the background behind their drawings, paintings, murals, and sculptures. However, I began wondering some time ago how the general public could learn to appreciate what went into each work they saw in a gallery or museum.

The most important question I asked myself was this: Since so much art work is difficult to understand and each drawing, painting, mural, or sculpture is often cloaked in mystery and erudition, how is the average person who has little or no training or background in the visual arts able, first, to judge a work’s worth, and, second, to have an inkling of what each work is meant to convey?

As a result, I came up with an idea I hope can eventually be seriously considered by all gallery and museum directors on one hand and by all serious artists on the other. The idea is this: Why don’t the directors insist that all artists write an explanation in detail of what each of their works means, what it seeks to convey, why it was created, and how it fits in with each artist’s philosophy as a creative person?

The explanations for all the works displayed should appear next to them and be plainly visible and readable to the gallery-goer or museum-goer. In addition, the explanations could be contained in the brochures or programs that usually accompany showings at galleries and museums.

Now, I can already hear the complaint that some aficionados might utter about my suggestion. The naysayers might say that great art doesn’t need an explanation or that those visiting art shows should be left to determine for themselves what the meaning may be of a drawing, painting, mural, or sculpture. The quick answer to that complaint should be, “Yes, I am willing to concede that viewers may draw a variety of different reactions to displayed art works, but that shouldn’t mean that artists shouldn’t be required to provide their own explanation of how a work came about and what the artist had in mind in creating it.”

Imagine what might happen if my idea were adopted across the nation and across other nations, as well. Appreciation of all the visual arts would be bound to increase substantially. So would the purchase of art. Attendance at gallery and museum exhibitions would skyrocket.

Would the artists themselves object to the idea? Of course not. Such a great increase in arts activity would benefit them most of all, because sales of their work would certainly double, triple, or even quadruple. Since galleries and museums benefit, as well, from sales of art or from paid admissions, they certainly would champion the idea. So, denizens of the Art World, what are you waiting for?

Gallup recently asked Americans what the most important issue facing the country today.

Global warming didn’t even get a mention out of 27 different responses.

Governor Christine $pendmore, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and the state Democrats are a little out of touch for spending money on foolish global warming programs when Americans don’t give a rip.

Recent developments in the Far East have proved me right when I suggested some time ago that the U.S. should quit trying to please European nations and, instead, look to fast-improving India, China, Japan, Singapore, and HongKong for future trade agreements and cultural ties.

The latest evidence of pro-America sentiment in the Far East comes from Japan, which recently installed a new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who wasted no time announcing that he is seeking a strong, firm policy of friendship and trade relations with the U.S. “The Japan-United States alliance,” he said, “forms the foundation of our foreign and security policy.”

At the moment, Japan will serve as a most important ally with the U.S. and China in confronting the nuclear-minded administration of North Korea, which continues to make threats that it has and will use its nuclear capability if needed to ward off an American attack the U.S. has adamantly stated it has no intention of making.

Abe’s new policies include a continuation of the move made by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to send and support Japanese troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, which is something our haughty onetime allies in Europe have failed to do. And the Japanese have shown no indication of pulling out of Afghanistan and Iraq until the rebuilding program has run its course and the democratic governments in those countries are stable.

At the same time, Abe has proclaimed a new move to win stronger ties with China, India, and all other nations of the Far East and the rest of the world, as well. It’s a new era in the Far East, and, despite the continued presence of Communist governments in China and Vietnam, the burgeoning economies on the other side of the world bode well for America’s economy and its friendship with Far Eastern countries.

Perhaps even more important at the present time in world history is the fact that the Far Eastern nations have joined us in the campaign to rid the world of Muslim extremism and put an end for all time to the international terrorism that has provoked hate and insecurity in so many parts of the world.

One sore spot in the Far East remains a serious problem on all counts. That is Indonesia, the nation of islands and the largest Muslim nation in the world, which itself has been wracked by the continuing bombings, suicide missions, and ambush attacks by Muslim extremists.

The combination of Japan, China, India, and our most welcome ally in the Pacific, Australia, could provide the answer to Indonesia’s problem. One must hope that they will step up their pressure on Indonesia’s Islamic leaders to help subdue the extremists and offer an example to other Islamic nations in the world.

In the meantime, I would hope that the growing friendship and trade agreements between the Far Eastern nations and the U.S. will bring our onetime European allies to their senses and to the realization that the international war against terror isn’t our war alone. It is, mo